


A Very Washed Ashore Christmas

by Kathar



Category: Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. (TV), Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Christmas Eve, Established Relationship, F/F, M/M, a washed ashore story, brief allusion to slightly underage drinking, but more church than expected, nervous baking, very few chickens in this one
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-12-24
Updated: 2015-12-25
Packaged: 2018-05-08 21:52:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 12,782
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5514635
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kathar/pseuds/Kathar
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>For their first Christmas together on North Bar, Phil's desires are simple: his Clint, his dog, his scotch, and a fire. Clint has some unexpected ideas about that. Phil blames him and Doc Halliday in about equal measure. </p><p>One year later, Kate and America come back to North Bar for the holiday season and walk straight into the middle of a crisis in progress. Featuring: nervous-baking Skye, nervous-decorating Clint, and a Phil Coulson who still doesn't trust Kate with the chickens.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. December, 2015

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Washed Ashore](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1831450) by [Kathar](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kathar/pseuds/Kathar). 



> This is a two-part story, following Phil and Clint's first two Christmases on North Bar after the events of [Washed Ashore](http://archiveofourown.org/works/1831450/chapters/3933808). You don't _need_ to have read Washed Ashore, but it definitely helps.
> 
> Part 1 originally appeared as a tumblr extra last Christmas during Washed Ashore's run. It's been brushed off, neatened up, and betaed by the lovely Faeleverte and Laurakaye, in preparation for posting.
> 
> Part 2 is new.

"Phil, you're not wearing a damned suit, are you?" Clint asked, sounding aghast. 

Phil looked up in the middle of knotting his tie and blinked back at him.

"I was planning on it, yes," he said, and tightened the silk down.

Clint just stared at him for half a moment, more than long enough for Phil to begin to wonder if he’d failed to spot a large stain on the lapel-- or rent on the rear-- and then sighed.

"And a silk tie as well. Tony's been getting to you, hasn’t he? Ditch the consultant-to-superheroes-and-spies duds, dear. You wear a fucking custom-tailored three-piece, you're gonna look overdressed and everyone'll gossip about how you went to New York and got all fancy and shit and forgot all about them, and the last thing we need is Wanda Jackson guilt-tripping us again. Or worse, Tony. She’s-- ow. Fuck."

Phil pursed his lips to keep himself from laughing as Clint broke off his tirade to glare at his own shoulder. He'd been dressing as he talked and had clearly forgotten that he’d recently re-injured his shoulder, the one that had taken the brunt of the final confrontation with Ian Quinn and Felix Blake. How he’d forgotten, since he’d only just stopped pain killers, Phil wasn’t sure, but the fact remained that he’d been moving just like normal right up until he'd failed in his attempt to raise his arms over his head to pull on his sweater.

Well-- Phil's sweater, technically. Phil's blue and green alpaca sweater that had been sitting in the back of his closet for ages. It had been bought at some charity sale years past and worn maybe thrice before Phil had realized it was too nice for everyday and too approachable for community events. After the evening concert where it seemed like half the adult population of Gansett Light had found excuses to stroke his arm, clasp his shoulder, or touch the small of his back, he’d thrown the sweater into the back of his closet. It had clearly been made to pet-- which was going to be an even bigger problem this time around, with Clint and his all-too-fondlable arms wearing it.

_Clearly, I'm just going to have to stick very close to him. Protect his flanks._

"What?" Clint asked, glaring at him over the neck of the sweater, daring Phil to make something of it. He'd readjusted his angle of attack to pull his head through first, and was now rustling around inside it, trying to find the armholes.

"Nothing," Phil said, hands raised to placate him. "I'd help, but well... if I come over there right now, we're never going to get out of this bedroom." He let his voice dip into a purr-- something he found ridiculous but that Clint, for whatever reason, had strongly suggested he did not.

Clint attempted a sultry look in return. Given that his arms were still bundled beneath fuzzy colorwork, and his nose and lips lost under the sweater's grass-green neckband, he ended up looking more like a seductive gopher than anything else. 

In order to hide his snickers, Phil turned away and began removing the other components of his suit from their hangar, his movements quick as he shook the jacket out. He paused, holding it by the collar, and stared at it, let his thumb smooth over the subtle gray pinstripe, then range over the pile of discarded ties on the bed, left because he’d had a hard time deciding on the best match. Maybe… maybe he _had_ been getting a bit too used to fancy New York ways, as Clint called them. It’d been necessary, at first, to suit up as often as possible, to remind himself that he wasn’t just-- or even primarily-- the Keeper of North Bar anymore. That he was negotiating with billionaires and the heads of spy agencies and members of the Pentagon and the UN now. Which was absolutely and definitely _not_ what he wanted tonight to be about. He put the jacket back on the hangar, and drew the vest off.

"Tell you what," he said, as he buttoned it up and removed his tie, "what if I leave the jacket behind and just wear this?"

He turned back to show Clint the results-- which, he would admit to hoping, were pretty natty-- and found Clint a half foot away and closing rapidly.

The world tilted hard as Clint crashed into him one-armed and tackled him backwards onto the bed. Phil ended up staring at the ceiling, stunned, with Clint hovering over him. Clint’s knees trapped his hips in place and his entire body swayed back and forward minutely, like he was still draining off the excess energy from his leap. With his hair and beard all fluffed and rumpled by the sweater, he looked like a friendly, horny lion.

"I'm pretty sure there was something we were supposed to be doing," Phil mused, staring up at him. "Somewhere we were supposed to go? Do you remember? Because something knocked it out of my head."

"Yeah," Clint replied, smirking down at him, and then he kissed Phil sloppily. He threw his entire body, all that coiled energy, into the kiss, and Phil felt himself arching up, bracing himself against Clint’s arms, and trying to curve his neck up far enough to offer it as the next target for ravishing. He’d just gotten himself positioned appropriately when Clint finished his thought: "We were going to church."

"Fuck," said Phil, and felt his entire body droop.

"You'll have plenty of time for that when you get back," Natasha drawled from the doorway, and Phil shoved Clint backwards reflexively. 

Clint tumbled off both him and the bed, falling ass-first onto the floor, and sprawling at Natasha’s feet. Phil figured that must be at least partially deliberate, and Natasha must have thought so as well, as she just rolled her eyes and stepped backwards when Clint raised a hand and waggled it in a _please pick me up_ gesture. 

He turned pleading eyes on Phil, who ignored it too-- Clint was as likely to pull him down, intent on revenge, as to get up. And if they ended up on the floor, they would definitely be late.

Phil heaved himself off the bed, giving up any attempt at shirking his duties and having his way with Clint. He skirted his still-sprawled lover and went to the mirror on the far wall to adjust his clothing, ignoring the Black Widow hovering in his bedroom doorway for a moment. As he finished putting on his cufflinks, he brooded.

Church.

He blamed Doc Halliday and Clint in about equal measure. 

“But Phil,” Clint had said, two weeks ago, when Phil had mentioned how happy he’d be to be back on North Bar for Christmas, how much he was looking forward to a quiet Christmas Eve spent on the couch, curled up between his lover and Lucky, watching the fire, drinking something at least 100 proof, and definitely absolutely under no circumstances in any way shape or form thinking about global security or the Avengers place in it. He especially did not want to think about Tony Goddamn Stark or Captain Puppy Dog Eyes America-- or, for that matter, Nick Director of That Agency Phil Refused to Name Because That Would Imply He Cared and Just At the Moment He Didn’t Fury.

Which… wait… Phil tried to backtrack to wherever his mind had been when he’d started that thought.

Ah. Right:

“But, Phil,” Clint had said,two weeks ago, “we’re going to church, right?”

This had been news to Phil.

“Doc Halliday says we are,” Clint had told him, and Phil had bitten off a groan, one borne of familiarity. Already he heard those words too often from Clint’s otherwise tempting lips. “We’re supposed to be winning hearts and minds in the community, right? There are certain obligations that come with the good will of Gansett Light, and active participation in the seasonal rituals of the town are no small part of them.”

“That was a direct quote, wasn’t it?” Phil had asked him, mostly rhetorically. He still recalled a similar conversation from when he’d first found himself roped into volunteering in the community, years ago now. At the time, he’d wondered whose idea it had been that he should want to be an active part of the community at all-- it certainly hadn’t been his. “Did you try to play the agnostic card?” he tried, without much hope.

“Yeah. She said, and I quote, ‘don’t you try and foist any of that agnostic nonsense on me, Mr. Barton. I don’t care whether you do or don’t believe in God or Jesus or little fluffy bunnies, you can still go to church. That’s what the Unitarians are for, anyway.’” 

“Thought she might say that,” Phil had muttered, because that had been what she’d said to him. 

So that had been that-- he and Clint were expected at a Christmas Eve late service. It was a small mercy; if they started the service in darkness and silence, it cut out some of the awkwardness of trying not to seem as out of place as the other twice a year churchgoers crowded in with the regular attendees.

Anyway, Phil’s dreams of a quiet evening alone on North Bar with Clint had been doomed to failure from the moment Natasha had invited herself along. He’d been a little surprised there hadn’t been more of an attempt by Stark or Rogers or the others to keep her, but as it turned out Stark and Pepper Potts were joining Col. Rhodes and Doctor Banner in Malibu for Christmas-- Pepper seemed to think she could keep order better there. Thor was visiting his astrophysicist for the holidays, and Rogers and Wilson were holding down the fort, and had invited Bucky Barnes to join them (another step, Phl hoped, in bringing Rogers around to including Barnes on the team). 

Phil’d expected Natasha to stay in New York, in case of Avengers-level catastrophes on Christmas day. However, he was never going to begrudge her the need to stay close to Clint-- and definitely not so soon after finally finding him again. It was just….

She just… cramped his style. A little.

Ever since she’d warned him that she never wanted to hear another squeak about their sex life-- not after learning about Clint’s predilection for toes.

She also shooed them down the stairs, into their coats, and out the door with an efficiency that suggested some kind of past experience either herding cats or teaching kindergarten-- Phil wasn’t sure which was the scarier possibility.

As he and Clint slid inside the miniscule cabin of the boat they’d rented for the winter, Phil grumbled and tucked himself further into his peacoat. The wind and the spray were already crawling through the thick boiled wool, and he wasn’t looking forward to the to-and-fro from island to island at all. 

“At least someone gets to curl up in front of the fire with my dog and my scotch,” he groused. 

Beside him, Clint made a choked-off noise and started the boat. Phil looked over at the man, his face shadowed and unreadable in the dim light from the instrument panel and the boat’s headlamp, and further obscured both by beard and by the locks of hair emerging from his watch cap.

 _He’s going to look like he just crawled out of bed when he takes that damn hat off-- and he’s going to walk right into church next to me looking like that_ Phil thought. He bit back a gulp. 

The ride was quiet, or as quiet as it could be beneath the grind of the motor and the slap of the waves against the sides. It never warmed up much, and the windscreen fogged a little at the edges with their combined breaths. Phil felt like they were moving through a world of endless black, lit only by the faint glow that revealed small sections of dark water in front of them. 

They docked at last, after an ageless time, and debarked. Clint stood on the edge of the dock, stretching out kinks and looking up at the full moon riding high in the sky, beginning to be surrounded by a dusting of stars. The dock creaked beneath him, and Phil turned his collar up. At least there was no snow.

Small comforts.

“Can we get going, if we’re going?” he asked, shuffling his feet to keep his toes from going numb.

Clint turned to look at him, and raised an eyebrow high enough that it registered even in the mostly-dark.

“I’m enjoying the night,” he said, and Phil didn’t think he was imagining the frustration in his tone.

“Can we enjoy it somewhere warm?” he snapped back, because he actually did like his hands, really, and he wanted to keep them, and he’d forgotten to take his fleece-lined gloves from the cottage. The leather ones he was wearing were no help whatsoever. “Like the church?”

_Maybe I should have worn the suit; clearly it didn’t take me long to go all big city._

“You didn’t seem that eager to get there earlier,” Clint replied, but he started moving.

“Being guilted into participating in a ritual I haven’t really believed in since I was twelve for the sake of keeping the community peace would do that,” Phil grumbled, following along. On the island proper, street lamps and porch lights provided a little more coziness and a touch more warmth-- if he ignored the vastness of the ocean just beyond them.

“You’d said Doc had the same talk with you about the church thing, years back,” Clint said, never breaking his stride. _He’d_ remembered to wear thick wool-lined gloves, and had one of Phil’s old, ratty, almost absurdly warm scarves wrapped his neck. He didn’t seem to notice the cold at all. “Didn’t sound like you brushed her off.”

“She’s hard to say no to,” Phil sighed. “I used to show up once every couple months or so at a local Friends’ meeting.” 

Clint did turn then, blinking at him.

“You’re a Quaker?” he asked, voice spiraling upwards.

“I’m not, I just… well, I had to pick something,” Phil shrugged, “and the meetings are quiet.” He’d gone to the first one just so he could tell Lauren Halliday he _had_ , hoping it would get her off his back-- much like Clint and Christmas Eve services. He’d gone to the next simply because it was nice, sometimes, just to sit in stillness with other people. Yes, occasionally the silence was interrupted when someone felt called to sing or speak, but even then there was this sense that nothing was expected of you but to offer your presence. Even North Bar demanded more; maintenance and watchfulness and chicken feed.

“Yeah,” Clint said, “but aren’t they pacifists? Didn’t they care that you’re ex-mil?”

Phil felt himself bristle momentarily, but let it go. It was just Clint being Clint, trying to untangle the knots that people often made of themselves. He didn’t seem to mean to be critical.

“Plenty of vets who are Friends,” Phil told him, “and at the time, well--” _at the time I wasn’t actively shooting at people_ \-- “I really needed it, I found. Peace, I mean.” 

_Just not cut out for it long-term, as it turns out._

“Peace is good,” Clint agreed, and started walking again. “Little enough of it in this life.”

The echo of his own thoughts unsettled Phil, dredging up the part of him that still resented being pulled into the chaos that inevitably came with the Avengers. Or more properly-- the part of him that resented how much he _thrived_ on the chaos.)

“Pretty peaceful on North Bar tonight,” Phil said, instead of responding directly. It would be, too-- Natasha was probably even now snuggled onto the couch with tea and a dog, the chickens would all be cuddled up in their roost, possibly clucking their drowsy way into rest. The mansion would be still and dark, the entire island hushed. 

“Phil,” Clint said, turning on him, “Can you just, for _my_ sake, be okay with this right now? I don’t really feel like dragging you sulking into the church. You know these people. You like these people. This shouldn’t be that difficult, not given everything else you do for this community. We’ve got two blocks left; try and be the Phil they want to see by the time we get there.”

Stung by the frustration in his voice, the suggestion that Phil was somehow being selfish to just want Clint _to himself_ at the moment, Phil felt himself flush. 

“Don’t take that tone with me,” he snapped. “You know damned well I’ll be polite when I get there. But are you seriously telling me you don’t resent that we’ve got to be here, instead of safe and warm at home?”

“Yeah, Phil, I am seriously telling you that,” Clint replied, and then all the anger in his face collapsed as suddenly as snow falling from a roof, leaving behind a little rueful smile. “And it’s not because I’m not anxious to get you and your addictive ass back under the covers. Look,” he stepped forward, closing the distance between them and clasping both Phil’s hands with his. “I owe a lot to Gansett Light.”

Phil’s hands were finally starting to thaw under the heat Clint radiated even from inside his gloves. He looked down at them, then up into the dark pools of Clint’s eyes.

“They took me in pretty much on your word alone, and maybe Doc’s,” Clint continued, watching him closely, “and they didn’t ask for that much in return. If would be dead without you, but I would be dead without them, too. You, Phil, you’ve got fifteen years of concentrated goodwill built up with them, running their planning meetings and rebuilding houses and saving their lives, even. If it were just you, you could stay home and do whatever, and they’d all just say ‘that’s our hermit,’ and deal, even now that you’ve got a literal flying car. 

“But me? I’m still new, and I want them to know I appreciate everything they’ve done, okay? It’s the least I can do, after all the trouble I’ve been-- and almost definitely will be in the future. I _want_ to be here, sitting in a pew with Doc Halliday, seeing Tom, knowing that Wanda Jackson is doing the same thing over at St. James AME, and we can talk about it later. Hell, even with Des, he can grumble about getting dragged off to the synagogue and I’ll talk about late services and what’s up with that, right?

“Some places, it wouldn’t matter, but here it does. And…” Clint frowned, and looked at the ground suddenly, “and that’s a thing I’ve never had a chance to try before. I want to try it now.” 

Phil found his breath caught in his throat. 

He’d never asked-- well, when had he gotten a chance?-- what Clint had done, growing up, for the holidays. What it was like in the circus, or in the orphanages. He’d lost his parents even younger than Phil-- not that Clint’s parents had ever been much anyway, from what Phil could tell. As an adult, first mercenary then spy then superhero, Clint might well have not experienced things Phil himself had long since grown accustomed to and perhaps rather resentful of. Quiet nights on North Bar would be, he hoped, in plentiful supply. This was not. He turned his fingers in Clint’s hands and gripped back, tightly. 

“Let’s go,” he said, and butted his forehead against Clint’s. “I promise to be good. Well-- unless you make me sit next to Jamie.”

“Nuh-uh,” Clint told him, and pulled him along, “you haven’t been bad enough to deserve _that._ ”

They crossed the remaining blocks quickly, ending up in a little, intermittent stream of people headed for the long neo-colonial portico of the church. At the top of the steps, Phil was startled to see Skye waiting for them, huddled into a long coat and longer scarf, peeping out nervously from under her bangs.

“Heya, Boss,” she said when Phil got close to her, and then she reached out and hugged him-- an act to which he supposed he would someday become accustomed. At the moment, however, it was still more than a little awkward, and he patted her on the back until she let go. Clint snorted at him.

“What are you doing here?” he asked her, “did Doc Halliday get to you, too?”

Skye looked back at him, blinking a little in confusion, then over at Clint, then back once more.

“Seemed like the place to be,” she said, and shrugged awkwardly. “Not like I have other family to go to. And….” Her dark eyes turned inward for a moment, “I guess maybe the nuns did rub off on me, a bit. Anyway, I’m feeling a bit… nostalgic? Or grateful? I dunno. Silly, huh?”

“No,” Phil said, and squeezed her shoulder, suddenly fighting not to go down under a flood of mingled fondness and regret. Yet another orphan, their Skye, and he hadn’t had the grace to pay attention to that properly either, he’d been so caught up in Clint’s problems and his own. “Not silly,” he said. “Glad to see you.”

Skye smiled up at him, then broke away and slipped over to the other side of Clint, hooking her arm through his. Clint grinned and bumped her. 

“Speaking of, Other Boss,” she said to Clint as they walked in the door, “Kate texted. She’n America’ll be by tomorrow, if you tell me when is too early.”

“They will?” Clint asked, a little wary, “I didn’t think we were gonna see them for a while?”

“Yeah, well, it’s nice to have a girlfriend who can fly, I guess? America snuck her back to New York to see their friends today, and she’s gonna sneak her over to North Bar tomorrow. She just doesn’t wanna come before you and Boss are decent-- I mean, not that I do, either, so tell me when’s safe.” 

Phil fought back his blush long enough to start

“The normal time is fine--” but Clint cut him off.

“Give us a couple extra hours,” he told her. “We’re sleeping in.”

“We are?” Phil asked him, suspicious. “But what happens to the chickens and Lucky? Skye’s room’s not ready at the mansion yet and I don’t want the Steves rioting just because they didn’t get their feed at the normal time. Or Lucky interrupting us, for that matter.”

It wasn’t that sleeping in didn’t sound good-- he might have had dreams, of both the day and night varieties, about sleeping in with Clint, just drowsing along in his arms as the sun slowly lightened the room, kind of rolling into morning sex by degrees and then letting the afterglow take them. They’d just never had an opportunity to do it, and there were few on North Bar with its constant demands.

“Nat’s taking care of the chickens tomorrow and making breakfast,” Clint told him. “Our present from her, she says.”

“She is?” Phil asked, stunned. Breakfast was one thing, breakfast he could see. But the thought that Natasha was willing to turn chicken-keeper on their behalf, however temporarily, was unexpectedly touching. “I’ll have to thank her.”

They’d entered the long, high-vaulted sanctuary, where everything was still except for the rustle of people gathering in the near dark. Skye slid down a pew, nodding at Tom, who was already sitting smack in the middle of the row. He smiled back down at her. Phil sat down next to them, feeling a little awkward as he settled in, trying not to rustle his order of service too loudly, and searching the back of the pew in front of him for the hymnal.

Clint settled next to him, distractingly pettable in his sweater, just as Phil’d foreseen. Phil gave in to temptation with a light caress along his arm, and was rewarded with a smile that radiated even in the dim light. 

“Nat said not to thank her,” Clint whispered when they were settled, taking the thread of their earlier conversation back up. He paused a moment, then laughed to himself. “Well. That’s not quite what she said.”

“What did she say?” Phil prompted him, when Clint didn’t seem inclined to continue. 

Clint leaned closer to him still, breath warm on Phil’s ear.

“She said we could thank her by shutting the damn door and keeping the noise down.” he said. “She doesn’t want to know more about your toes.”

Which was how Phil found himself flushing bright red, caught between mortification and desire, as the pastor stepped up to the lectern and greeted the assembled congregation.

On one side of him, Skye leaned forward, listening intently. On the other, Clint laid his head on Phil’s shoulder, his chuckle so low as to be mostly vibration against Phil’s skin. Phil slid his palm down to the small of Clint’s back and dug in. Tom sat behind him, already shuffling pages in the hymnal. From a few rows in front, Lauren Halliday turned around and gave him a bright smile. Someone coughed, a child whined, and the organ wheezed to life.

As the assembled Gansett Light throng stood, Phil pulled his own hymnal out of the pew back in front of him and handed it to Clint, letting their fingers brush. Clint shot him a sly little smile before starting to sing, confident about it in a way that Phil hadn’t realized he would be. Phil took a deep breath, and lent his own voice to the harmony.

It wasn’t home, a fire, and a warm dog, but Phil decided he’d had worse Christmas Eves. 

And he had a hell of a lot to look forward to, come the morning.


	2. December 2016

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Kate and America come back to North Bar for the holiday season, and walk straight into the middle of a crisis in progress. Featuring nervous-baking Skye, nervous-decorating Clint, and a Phil Coulson who still doesn't trust Kate with the chickens.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Obligatory Chicken warning: Never let Billy Kaplan near the chickens.
> 
> This chapter, even more than the other, has spoilers for Washed Ashore. The words will make sense without reading it, but no guarantees on the plot.
> 
> Thanks and thanks and all the thanks are due to the lovely and amazing LauraKaye for the beta, and then for sitting up with me and looking over the edits. And thank you to faeleverte for cheerleading me through the writing of this.
> 
> Credit where due: several lines in the second to last scene come straight out of Fraction's Hawkeye run, issue #2.

The kitchen windows were edged with frost and a blue glow lingered in them briefly as America closed the dimensional portal. It took a moment for Kate’s senses to adjust to the new world. At first, all she saw was those windows, all she felt was her girlfriend pressed warmly up against her back. Then scent trickled back in, the smell of sand and ocean clean of its green seaweed undertones in the winter. There was a lemony topnote to the kitchen, a little lingering coffee, and Kate breathed out with a sigh and looked around.

Still the same old North Bar.

“Gate won’t close, railings froze,” a man was singing somewhere in the depths of the little cottage, in a voice as light as the winter sun streaking the countertops. It drifted to her, coming closer. “Get your mind off wintertime, you ain’t goin’ nowhere.”

Kate blinked, momentarily frozen, and tried to figure out which of the cottage’s usual occupants was the singer. Both options seemed entirely out of character. There was a pause in the song, a light thump, and then the singer continued, clearly smiling through it:

 “Whooee, ride me high, tomorrow’s the day my man’s gonna come.”

Clint backed into the kitchen trailing some kind of garland that looked like sparkly cranberries, which he proceeded to drape over the white-painted lintel. He was singing all the way, getting into it the way people only do in the shower or other places they’re quite sure they’re alone.

Only Kate didn’t have a voice half like that, not even in the shower, which was completely unfair. 

“Oh, oh, we’re gonna fly, down in the easy chair,” Clint sang. His self-satisfaction was alarming. 

“Heya, Hawkeye,” Kate said, just to see him jump (and man did he). “How’s married life treating you?” 

“Katie-Kate,” he grinned when he came back down facing her, and she found herself enveloped in a hug almost before she could get a proper look at him. A half-moment more to prepare and it might have been less overwhelming, all the scruff against her forehead and the flannel and strength of him squeezing, that insanely-controlled power in his arms. She wrapped her arms around his waist briefly and squeezed back, going for counter-pressure as much as welcoming. 

After a moment, he pulled back to hold her at arm’s length, and shook her lightly. 

“You look good,” he said, and turned to greet America. 

“So do you,” Kate replied, brushing her hair back out of her face and straightening her jacket. The man hugged _hard_. “I take it Phil gets back tomorrow?” 

“Tonight,” Clint said, “but that didn’t scan with the song. Is this a fly-by, or do we get you for Christmas this year?” 

“Ah,” Kate looked over at America, looking for a sign. They hadn’t exactly planned it that way-- hadn’t exactly _not_ planned it that way either. She’d figured she’d stop in and say hi, see what was up, play it by ear. She didn’t exactly have better offers, but then again the two of them had gotten real good at taking life one day at a time. America shrugged back at her, no help whatsoever. 

“Depends?” was what Kate finally went with. 

“Nice,” Clint snorted, looking at them both. “What, collecting bids or something? I’ve got a Lucky and a full henhouse for openers. What’re your chicken-denuding friends in New York gonna bid?”

“You serious?” she asked, reflexively. In the year-plus since America had started her off on a gap-year tour of the multiverse, they’d been back a fair amount for visits to North Bar or New York. Clint always seemed happy to see her, no matter where they kicked their way through, but he’d never invited her to just _stay_ before. 

Well, except for when he and Phil asked her to watch the place after the wedding, while Skye was in New York. Which wasn’t the same as asking her to stay while its residents were actually in residence. 

“Why wouldn’t I be serious?” Clint had turned away from them to start hanging up garland, and he paused as he asked the question, turning around with a frown. 

Kate fought herself hard, not to remind him of what had happened the one time she’d let Billy set foot on the island. It’d given her good reason to suspect Clint and Phil never wanted her staying on North Bar again. Maybe the chickens had finally recovered. 

A loop of garland slipped through Clint’s fingers and thumped down over his forehead. He blinked at her through a drunken halo of sparkly fruit. 

“‘Cause your husband’s going to be home tonight and the cottage ain’t exactly big,” America drawled, humor creeping into her voice as Clint _lit the fuck up_ at the word “husband.” 

Kate hadn’t considered that complication either. She’d _heard_ those stories from the Black Widow. 

(It was, as ever, a little overwhelmingly cool that she and the Black Widow were on terms where Natasha kept her up to date on this shit. Dimension-hopping girlfriend, actual superheroes talking to her, and never having to face Christmas with Dad and Heather again. Life was certainly epic lately.) 

“Yeah,” she said, trying to keep her face straight as she watched Clint blush beneath his accidental decoration, “hiding my head under the pillows and humming loudly all night isn’t how I want to spend Christmas. Wouldn’t want to cramp your style.” 

“Girly-girl,” Clint said, carefully untangling the garland from his already-messy hair, “you couldn’t if you tried. But don’t worry-- mansion’s open. Plenty of rooms. You’n America could even each have your own, if you wanted to go full-on Victorian.” 

“All alone over there?” Kate wrinkled her nose. 

The place was big. And it creaked. Not that the cottage didn’t creak-- or shake, even, when the wind came over the dunes the right way-- just… it just… it had large men with light voices inhabiting it with their scruffy goddamn dog, and the residual warmth they left made a difference. Kate’d never had a really _warm_ Christmas, and for half a moment there she’d looked forward to one. 

“Not alone.” Clint was watching her carefully, gone serious all over. “Skye’ll be there.” 

America shifted behind her, and Kate figured she’d caught the note of caution in Clint’s voice as well. Clint held her eyes for a moment, then suddenly shrugged and went back to garlanding the kitchen. 

“She’d be okay with it?” America asked him. “Not looking for alone time?” 

“She used to live in a van, I think she can find alone time in a big old place like that.” 

“How is she?” Kate asked quietly, and Clint stilled again. 

“Now that, Hawkeye,” he said, “is a very interesting question.” 

\----

The path up the little rounded slope, barely steep enough to deserve the name “hill,” had been covered in gravel, apparently to combat its tendency to go all mud and ice as the snow melted. Kate trudged up it tucked under America’s arm, and watched her breath lead the way, misting the air in front of her. 

They’d left Clint to his preparation-- and his singing, probably-- to go say hi to the other denizens of the little Jersey Shore island of North Bar that he and Phil called home the half of the time they weren’t in New York. In the outside world, Clint was still Avengering it up, taking down Hydra bases wherever they popped up. Phil had more than settled into his role as consultant to them and to SHIELD, with a growing team under him. Some of the time they did their work from the North Bar mansion, but it also, Kate knew, was their hideaway.

Maybe “called home” wasn’t really accurate anymore. It _was_ their home; the deed to the island had been Tony Stark’s wedding present to Clint and Phil. Which Phil claimed was likely why the storm had hit just after everyone’d assembled on the island for their marriage ceremony back in early October; the universe knew exactly when Stark’s near-bottomless bank accounts had stopped being responsible for upkeep. Kate had learned enough about the universe’s sense of humor these days to believe that. The storm had upended her own plans, too. She and America’d figured they’d get a nice quiet little retreat, lazing with the hens and shooting the occasional arrow at things, while they watched the island so that Clint and Phil could go on _some_ sort of honeymoon. 

But that had gone sour. After all the search and rescue and the general storm-related emergency work had wrapped up and Clint and Phil had finally left, Kate had ended up supervising all kinds of repairs to the mansion (and hadn’t ever thought she’d be grateful her Dad had _insisted_ she learn about real estate and architecture and shit like that) while America kept herself occupied with heavy lifting. And anyway, apparently the honeymoon hadn’t been restful for the newlyweds either. When they’d come back, they’d ended up sequestered in the Tower in New York for a week. 

By that point, Kate and America both had been getting restless. Billy and Teddy and Eli had come to visit and ended up leaving just ahead of an enraged, featherless, little black hen, and it’d been the last straw. They needed _out_. Melinda May’d come down to take over and Kate had felt only relief as she and America left for another, poultry-less, dimension. 

She hadn’t been in the mansion since all the repairs were finished, and she hadn’t seen Skye since the Blue Peter had finally sent the last of its evacuees off to their homes or to the mainland. Skye’d collapsed in a booth, only her hand visible above the naugahyde back as she waved goodbye, and that had been it. Kate didn’t know if she and Skye and America were all technically _friends_. They’d mostly been co-conspirators in the quest to clear Hawkeye’s name and take down Ian Quinn. 

But whether or not she and Skye were friends, she knew she hadn’t liked the tone of Clint’s voice back in the cottage. It suggested he was more than a little worried about Skye. 

“I could look at this for a little,” America said, breaking into Kate’s musings, and she blinked and looked up. 

The mansion was near shining in the clear winter sunlight, all minty green and delicate, surrounded by snow-topped juniper bushes and the bare branches of shrubs like etchwork against the sky. Clint’s garlanding spree had hit it as well; big fat swags of balsam hung from the lintel on the front door, and Kate wondered if he was uncovering hidden Martha Stewart DNA, or just very very nervous for his makeshift little family. 

As she was opening her mouth to get America’s opinion a rocket red convertible, soft top up against the cold, floated down from the sky and disappeared behind the mansion. 

“That never gets old,” America purred, and Kate felt momentarily jealous of a goddamn _car_. 

Footsteps crunching on gravel gave them half a moment to prepare before Phil Coulson rounded the corner of the house, smiling to himself and whistling, nestled into the upturned neck of a leather bomber jacket to keep warm. He looked up just as Kate stepped forward, and his smile lost some of its bedroom quality and turned family-friendly. 

“Ms. Bishop,” he greeted her. Kate winced-- which just made him smile wider and apologize via eyebrow crinkle.

“You got in early,” she replied, trying to regain the footing she _always_ seemed to lose around him. “Clint’s not ready yet.” 

Phil blinked at her a moment, his mouth twisted, just long enough for Kate to register how very _wrong_ that comment could sound, and then he laughed. Clearly, married life was treating _him_ well, even if thinking that thought was enough to make Kate shudder. 

“He’ll live,” Phil told her, “and I brought bribes.” He hoisted his go bag to show Kate the neck of a fat bottle of wine poking up. “Stark’s gift-- or else his apology for the last week or so. A _very_ merry Christmas to us. Actually, a very merry Solstice, since I don’t feel like waiting. If you’re joining us for the holidays, why don’t you two take Skye over to the Blue Peter tonight, and we can all have breakfast tomorrow?” 

“Sure,” Kate said slowly, while turning to look at America, who shrugged. That was two of Skye’s fatherish figures trying to foist them on her-- and that meant they’d probably better let themselves be foisted. “We’ll even let you guys sleep in.” 

“You might,” Phil agreed, “the chickens won’t.”

Kate opened her mouth to suggest she and America feed the chickens , then closed it as Phil glared at her. 

So. She still wasn’t trusted near the chickens. She and Billy were going to have _words_. 

“We haven’t gotten inside yet,” America interrupted, to Kate’s relief. “I want to say hi to Skye, chica, not sit out here and freeze my ass off. And I think Coulson wants to go say hi to his chickens and his hubby.” 

“It’s a thought,” Phil said mildly. “I am glad to see you two, and I’ll be even gladder to see you tomorrow.” 

And then a scruffy dog, so covered in snow he looked half sheep, came bounding around the corner. Phil forgot all about them as soon as he heard the first bark, in favor of dropping his bag, going to his knees, and submitting to a thorough licking. After debauching his owner to his satisfaction Lucky turned to give both Kate and America generous snuffles, and any worry about what they were going to find in the mansion was temporarily forgotten. 

\----

What they found in the mansion was a dark and empty foyer. The room to the right, which had been the breakfast parlor until Stark had retrofitted it with a truly scary amount of equipment and dubbed it the “ops parlor”, was lit only by the faint blue glow of a holographic display shimmering above a long table. From somewhere near the bottom of the display a thin pipe snaked. As Kate watched it grew a joint, took a 90 degree turn, sped, turned again, and began weaving an intricate network in the air.

“Is that what I think it is?” Kate whispered, pointing. America snorted. 

“Well it’d really suck to have a 3D image burned in the air if you left it too long, I suppose” she replied. 

“Yeah I don’t think that’s how it works,” Kate said. “Except maybe in Tony Stark’s dreams. Okay… where’s Skye?” 

“Parlor-parlor?” America asked, thumbing over her shoulder at the room on the opposite side of the hall. 

It was as empty as the ops parlor-- emptier, without the holographic version of a mid-90s screensaver floating in midair. Had Skye just wandered off? Was that what Phil and Clint had worried about? She had been used to a nomadic existence, before she’d arrived on Long Beach Island. Maybe they thought she was getting ready to disappear? (But how did one wander off an island as secretly highly-guarded as North Bar without one of the inhabitants knowing? Unless, of course, one was America Chavez.) 

Something clattered in the back of the house, followed by a thump and a groan. Kate and America looked at each other and began moving towards the closed door that led to the kitchen and back rooms. 

Kate eased the door open and found Skye at last, standing over the butcher block counter at the far end of the long, 19th-century kitchen and running oddly pale hands through her hair. There were ashen streaks in her black waves, making her look faintly Bride of Frankenstein. That entire end of the kitchen, counters, cabinets, dishcloths, inhabitant, and all, seemed to be coated in a fine pale powder like the trees outside. 

From the industrial ovens to the right, Kate smelled something she initially placed as one of those seasonal Yankee candles, inconveniently placed on top of a car engine. After a moment she recategorized the smell as something failing to bake, and winced. 

Skye didn’t seem to have noticed the smell; she was talking on a headset and assuring someone Kate was pretty sure was Melinda May that she’d be _fine_ , everything was _just fine_ , Phil’d just gotten back _fine_ she’d seen him from the window, and May should go and _have fun_ and not think about work and _don’t worry about me, Kate and America just walked in Merry Christmas and goodbye!_  

“What the fuck is going on?” Kate said, instead of any of the many neutral openings available to her. Skye widened her eyes. 

“Yeah, what got up May’s butt?” America added, because America was her hero and the wind beneath her wings and the person who saved her from social faux pas. 

Skye wrinkled her nose and seemed to consider for a moment. She looked tired, washed out and more contained somehow. When she spoke though, she kept it almost aggressively chipper. 

“May’s supposed to go visit her ex for the holidays. I think she might be hoping to, um… reconnect. Anyway, she keeps finding _things_ that need to get done right now immediately.” 

“So she’s scared,” America said, and Skye laughed. 

“Terrified. Which makes a change from the rest of us being terrified of her.” She said it fondly, and Kate caught herself smiling in return. Who’d have thought when they first met that Skye’d go from having no-one to worry about her to _too many people_ within the space of a year? 

“And, uh, you?” Kate gestured behind Skye at the smoke still curling lazily from the corner of the oven door, the flour-dusted counters, and the overturned tubes and bowls of something that might have been frosting but equally might have been spackling paste, which littered the counters in various oversaturated hues. “How’re the holidays treating you? How’s tricks hanging with SHIELD and the Avengers?” 

“Fine,” Skye said, holding her gaze. “Just… fine. So, you two staying?” 

A couple trays sat on the long metal kitchen island, shrouded in hastily-tossed towels. Kate slid over and peeked beneath one, wincing as she put it back down. 

“Yeah,” she said, “I think we are.” 

\----

 “I don’t really wanna go,” Skye said, for about the third time. “You two go. Have fun.” 

“C’mon,” Kate cajoled her, “just for a little. Pot pies, Skye. You can’t get those on Earth-212, and I want one. What’re you gonna have for dinner here, a leprous gingerbread man?” 

“Gingerbread person,” Skye grumped. She removed the offending cookie, which was somehow half dough and half burnt, from Kate’s hands and tossed it blindly into the trashcan. “And I’d nuke a pot pie, Kate. I buy them by, like, the dozen. A nice, quiet pot pie to myself since Clint will finally be occupied with Phil, not skipping around garlanding everything that stays still and trying to get me to help. And then I’ll try again with the cookies.” 

“If you try it, I might have to call poison control.” 

“Look,” Skye huffed at her, “I’ll be fine. Just leave me here with my sugar and my butter and Martha Stewart and I’ll make it work… somehow.” 

“No,” Kate told her firmly. “Martha’s a mean bitch about holiday shit. If you’re seriously gonna get all domestic-y on me, I’m gonna make you stream America’s Test Kitchen episodes. But for now, come with us. Try pie. Have a beer or something to unwind. It’ll be good for you.” 

They’d been having the same argument for the last ten minutes. The longer it went on, the more Kate found herself anxious to get Skye out of her holiday baking house of horrors, if for no other reason than to let the place air out a bit. Kate’d tried pleading Tom being lonely (“he sees me every week, Kate”), Doc Halliday being disappointed (“ _she_ sees me every week, Kate, what part of me living here is escaping you,”) partying with the locals (“yeah I’m such a party girl,”) the threat of Wanda Jackson (“you’re more afraid of her than I am, Kate.”) 

Kate was pretty sure she was about to skate right off the pushy-but-friendly rink into overly-invested territory. She really did normally know when to stop, honest she did. But America wasn’t trying to warn her off and America, Kate was coming to realize, could be relied on to stop her whenever she started pushing her socialite act too far. 

“Look, chica,” America finally said, leaning forward and poking Skye on the knee, “we promised Phil _and_ Clint we’d get you out of the mansion tonight. I don’t know why that’s important to them. I’m not sure I wanna know why, ya know? So come with us already. If you’re not happy we’ll grab something to go and a bottle of vodka or whatever you want and come back here so you can sulk in comfort. But we gotta say we tried, because I hate having to pick Kate up after Hawkeye looks all disappointed in her.” 

“ _Hey_ ,” Kate snapped, and America patted her thigh absently. 

Skye glanced at the two of them, and Kate tried her best to look determined. 

“I bet it’ll be cold. And wet. And windy,” Skye said dejectedly. 

“I’m sure you have mittens,” Kate told her. 

“Maybe I’ve lost them,” Skye perked up. “Maybe I’ll get frostbite if we have to take the boat tonight, ‘cause the heater’s broken.” 

“Chica,” America said, standing up and holding out her hand, “it’s like you don’t _know_ me. C’mon, you’re sulking worse than Kate and I’m not allowed to kiss you better. Let’s go. Blue Peter time. It’ll be good for you.” 

\----

“This is _so_ not good for me.” Skye sulked and put her chin down in her arms, threatening to slip off the booth and under the table. “And if one more person asks me how the Bosses are doing-- or worse yet how I’m doing-- I’m gonna scream. Why is everyone here tonight and why do they have to keep being happy to see me?” 

Kate and America looked at each other, and Kate set down her fries. 

“Booze?” America asked. 

“Booze,” Kate said, and moved over to scoop Skye up. 

\---- 

“So,” America said, “why’re the newlyweds so worried about you anyway, Skye?” 

She and Kate had bought Skye, a bottle of whiskey, and a few packages of fish and chips, back to the mansion. There, for the past hour, they’d all been camped out around the big old fireplace in the parlor-parlor tossing fries at each other, waving battered fillets with abandon, and getting progressively more and more… not drunk, not precisely. Just… loose. 

“I don’t wanna talk about it,” Skye whined, and ate a fry. 

\----

“I mean it’s not like they haven’t got other things to worry about. They have so many other things to worry about oh my _god,”_ Skye said, as she waved about a ziploc baggie full of emerald green frosting. “Between hunting down Hydra cells, keeping Tony from pulling all kinds of weird shit with chicken irradiators and robot peacekeepers and all-- which is totally why we’re bringing Col. Rhodes on board-- and the city thing, oh my god the city thing, that’s like Indiana Jones levels of shit, okay? Plus they’re newly married, shouldn’t they be sneaking away for nookie every chance they get? So why are they worrying about me?” She bent down to apply frosting to a cooling sugar cookie, and frowned when nothing came out. 

Kate took the baggie from her hand and snipped off the corner. 

“I don’t know, Skye, why would they worry about you?” she asked, gently moving the cookie so that the frosting plops would hit it. 

“I have no idea,” Skye growled. “Huh… you know, this frosting thing works much better when you do it after the cookies are baked.” 

“How the hell--” Kate asked, and Skye grimaced. 

“I panicked.” 

\----

“I know why they’re worried,” Skye admitted as she dribbled silver sprinkles from her fingers onto the chests of several gingerbread people with one hand and sipped from her drink with the other. “I know exactly why; they can tell I’m hiding something. Hell, even Tony can tell I’m hiding something. I know because mini-JARV totally tattled on him.” 

“I love how you and mini-JARVIS are co-conspirators now,” Kate said, and took the sprinkles away from her. Skye blinked at her empty hand, then down at the blinged-out cookies. 

“I’m naming that one Glittertits,” she said, pointing at the one she’d just finished, “and saving it for Wanda. She’ll get a kick out of it.” She sipped. “And Phil’ll have to leave the room so she doesn’t catch him laughing at her. Where was I?” 

“Hiding,” Kate said firmly. “They can tell you’re hiding something.” 

“Yeah. It’s, like, they’re spies, you know? It’s their job to figure out when someone’s bullshitting them. And they’re gonna be _so mad_. I should’ve told them days ago but….” Skye picked up Glittertits and thoughtfully bit her shoe off. “I dunno, I just couldn’t? Hey Kate? These’re really good. How’d you two learn to bake?” 

“My Moms,” America shrugged, and pointedly turned her back on them both, presumably so she couldn’t add “before they died.” Kate felt the familiar hollowness in her chest that accompanied America attempting to be a tough chick around her. 

“Nanny,” Kate added to take the focus off of her girlfriend. She moved the rest of the cookies over so that America could set them neatly in tins, nestled between strata of waxed paper, and took the opportunity to sneak in a kiss to the nape of America’s neck. “I had one that was really insistent I needed to, like, learn to be self-sufficient.” She paused, remembering how her little arms had ached after the first time she’d used the rolling pin, how long it had taken to get the dough from beneath her nails. 

“Family shit,” Skye sighed, watching the cookies depart, “I never really had that.” She bit off Glittertits’s head thoughtfully.

“Um, depends on what you consider family shit. Catch Dad or Heather or anyone within ten feet of a hot oven and a ten year old, I dare you.” Kate hadn’t meant it to come out so bitter, really she hadn’t. 

“Yeah but at least you _have_ a dad,” Skye told her, and stuffed the rest of the cookie in her mouth. 

Kate frowned hard, a sudden wave of irritation sweeping over her. Yeah she had a dad-- in theory. 

“Hey, Skye, weren’t you gonna give that one to Wanda?” she asked. 

“Aw, cookie, no,” Skye moaned, looking down at her hands. “I just ate Glittertits.”

\----

“Where the hell are we?” Skye asked, looking around and above her, her drink half dangling out of her hand. 

“You said you wanted to get away from anything that looked like a cookie,” America shrugged.

Kate fought down a giggle. It was a hard fight-- she’d never had hot buttered rum before, but America’d said that Tom had insisted it was just the thing to hit the spot on a night like this one. It was certainly hitting _Kate’s_ spots. 

“Yeah but-- I didn’t-- this--” Skye waved her arms wide. “This is _insane_.” She staggered as she did so, nearly falling over a rock covered in what Kate knew would, in full light, be lavender moss. Three moons hung suspended in the sky, shining silver and blue over the landscape, and the mountains towered up in the distance. Kate listened idly for any hint of nearby megafauna.

“Well,” America said quietly, “I thought you might be less afraid to talk somewhere far away from home.” 

“This is… this is _really_ _far_ ,” Skye said in a quiet rush. 

“Depends on where your home is,” America told her. 

Skye went still, blinking at America in the dim light. Kate felt herself sober rapidly. 

“America,” Skye whispered, “are you ever afraid you’re a monster?” 

“Uh,” America tilted her head to the side and blinked back, “do you think I am?” 

“No,” Skye shook her head. Vehemently. “No no no no no. Definitely not. You’re… like the opposite. _I_ think. ‘Monster’ is such a stupid word anyway. But I know you, so, like, I’m biased. Right? It’s just… I’m just…” she plopped down on the spongy moss with a sigh and slumped. “I’m probably just letting her get to me, that’s all.” 

“Okay,” America temporized, folding herself down across from Skye and setting the thermos full of buttered rum aside. “She called you a monster?” 

 _Who is she?_ Kate thought, but she kept her mouth shut. Best not to interrupt the flow, now that it was finally uncorked. Skye shrugged and looked away, down past Kate’s feet. 

“It’s… I shouldn’t be listening to her. But. Do people ever tell you that?” 

Of course they didn’t-- how could they? How could anyone look at America and think that for even an instant? Kate watched her girlfriend lean towards Skye, her hair sleek with moonlight and her dark eyes shadowed, and thought she’d never seen anything so brave. 

“Sometimes,” America told Skye gently. “But that’s the nice part about being me. If people don’t appreciate who I am, I can just… fly away.” She waved a hand idly, like she was describing hopping a Greyhound, not leaving a dimension. 

She carefully did not look at Kate as she said it, which was good. Because Kate was busily collapsing to the ground herself, cut off at the knees. She didn’t know which was worse to contemplate-- America being hated, or America leaving. 

“I used to do that,” Skye agreed. “Run, I mean. Not… I mean it’s not like anyone was after me with pitchforks. But. If they had been I’d have been ready. Now….” 

“Now you want to bake people cookies,” America finished for her. “And stock up on pot pies. But something’s got you thinking you might need to run. If Clint and Phil and Tony find out.” 

“I _like_ them,” Skye wailed. “I like them, and Melinda, and Doc and Wanda, and Lucky and the chickens, and Tom and Sam and Pepper and Natasha… and _everybody_. And they’d be disappointed in me for not telling them, I know that. But the thing is…” she paused. “The thing is-- they don’t really know all of me, right? ‘Cause I don’t know all of me. I think I know even less now than I did when I didn’t know anything at _all_.” 

Kate was still trying to make sense of that last wailed sentence when America huffed out a breath.

“I thought you wanted to find out about your parents?” 

“I thought I did too! But now I don’t know. Look-- if  you met someone who could tell you things about yourself, about your past, your family, that you never knew… if she said that you were… if she said awful things. If she said…” Skye squeezed her eyes shut. “I don’t want to turn out to be something they’ll hate.” 

“They’re not gonna hate you,” Kate told Skye. 

She scootched over until she could put a hand around Skye’s wrist, knocking over her drink in the process. It ate away a little hole in the moss, and Kate carefully did not think about what she was introducing to the ecosystem. 

“Look who you’re talking about, right?” she continued. “Phil’s, like, the most even-handed guy we know, and Clint’s a superhero all right but he’s also a complete softie. And I don’t know Stark well, but I’m pretty sure anything you can tell him is less bad than what he’s imagined.” 

“Arg,” Skye said, and fell backwards on the moss, flinging her arms out and blinking up at the stars. A maple syrup-scented breeze drifted past, ruffling her hair, and she squeezed her eyes shut. “Yeah, paranoid is his middle name. You weren’t even here for the whole AI robot thing he nearly built. Fuck-- by now I bet Tony thinks I’ve been brainwashed or something and is trying to build some kind of counterprogramming machine. It’s totally his fault in the first place, too.” 

“Is it?” Kate asked, growing increasingly confused. She supposed this was what she got for being gone so long-- or maybe for not having SHIELD security clearance. 

“Um… kinda. He found a guy just before the wedding who could tell me about why my parents abandoned me. We didn’t want to bug the Bosses right then, obviously. And… I dunno, it’s stupid, but it felt a little like I’d be… betraying them? Not, I mean not betraying-betraying but… but I’m pretty fond of them, especially Phil, and they gave me a _home_ and I didn’t want them to think I didn’t appreciate that. Bit me in the ass good, huh? It’d be so much easier to tell them about Raina if they knew about the other stuff… Kate?” She looked over, something glimmering on her face. 

“Yeah?” Kate asked, leaning forward and waiting. She vaguely remembered the name Raina-- an associate of Ian Quinn's, now in the Fridge with him. What did she have to do with anything?

“I hate your dad,” Skye told her, earnest as only the drunk could be. 

“Dude, we _all_ hate my dad,” Kate replied, trying to keep it flippant while strugging with the sudden left turn in the conversation. “What about it?” 

She tried to stuff down the ten year old part of her that had arranged sugar cookies with purple frosting so carefully on a faience plate, waiting for her Dad to come home so she could present them, waiting until it was an hour past her bedtime before her Nanny finally drew her away by promising she’d make sure he saw them. 

“What if I hate _my_ dad?” Skye asked, then gulped. “Because that’s definitely a possibility. I could find him and then end up hating him a lot. Or, oh shit-- what if I _don’t_ hate him? What do I even do?” 

“Okay,” America said gently, “I think it’s time to go home.” 

\---- 

“Shhhhhhhhh,” Skye hissed, waving the two of them back. “Don’t startle them.”

Kate refrained from telling Skye that the noise she was making was probably gonna do it anyway, because she was starting to shiver and didn’t want to spend the energy on speech. The moon had gone down hours ago and the stars were sparkling in that old familiar North Bar way, high and cold.  Her gloves were thin and so was her slouchy hat, cosmopolitan sure but not up to wind off the ocean. Fresh snow had fallen on North Bar while they’d been on another planet, and it was dry enough to squeak under their boots. 

America’s breath, moist on her neck, was the only warm thing around. 

“Get on with it,” Kate hissed back, and got a wavering thumbs-up. 

Skye set the coleman lantern on the gatepost, barely catching it before it teetered off. With a curse, she tried to re-set it. America grabbed it just as it started to fall again. 

“I’ll hold it,” she said, “you just go.” 

“K,” Skye nodded, bathed in the thin light, and bent to fumble with the door to the chicken run. “Hey guys, hey, it’s just me. Juuuuuust me. Breakfast time.” 

“Do you have their feed?” America asked when Skye was mostly inside the run and headed for the coop where the flock was huddled under heat lamps and straw. 

“Shit,” Skye said, standing up fast enough that she bumped her head on the low roof. As she began to curse, a small dark form appeared in the doorway to the coop itself, regarding her quietly. “Uh… sorry Tasha,” she told the chicken. “Um… I’ll just… I’ll just go get your food, okay?”

“Bwok,” said the hen, and followed her to the door as she backed out. Just at the threshold, Tasha pecked at Skye’s feet once, insolently. 

“Damnit,” Skye sighed, slumping against the closed door. “Even the chickens are disappointed in me.” 

“Oh come on, if anything Tasha’s mad you brought me back here,” Kate cajoled her, reaching around her to latch the door. Anything to keep her on the other side of it from the little black hen. “She still associates me with the magical plucking incident. So does Phil,” she sighed. “Surprised he didn’t put an alarm on the hutch or something.” 

“Well I don’t really have to, given how loud you three are being.”

Skye flailed as she turned to look up at the big back porch. Phil Coulson stood there in pajama pants and a barn coat, arms crossed over his chest and chin huddled into a threadbare scarf. Lucky sat by his side, pounding his tail against the porch boards and sending steam into the air with each excited pant. 

“You were supposed to be _asleep_ ,” Skye sighed. “Doesn’t work if you’re not asleep.” 

“What doesn’t work?” Phil asked, coming down and sitting on the steps. He had, Kate noted with some amusement, shoved his left foot into a winter boot and his right into a slipper, in his haste. 

“Letting you sleep in,” Skye told him. “For Christmas.” 

“Oh, is that what you were doing with the dramatic whispering and the extremely loud sneaking?” 

“Yeah. Guess it works better if we don’t wake you up, huh?” 

“Works better if we’ve actually been asleep,” Clint amended as he slipped out the storm door and onto the porch. He had a fleece blanket with him, and draped it over Phil’s shoulders. Of course Phil was the one wearing several layers already. _Clint_ was the one who’d apparently pulled on an old military parka but completely forgotten either to zip it up or to put on a shirt underneath.

“Really?” Kate sighed, and turned away lest she be mesmerized by the sight of his nipples by lantern light. 

“Shut up,” Clint told her before adjusting the coat and turning back to Skye. “Also, it’d work better if this were actually Christmas. You’re a couple days early. You… do remember that, right?” 

“Pssssh,” Skye told him, “‘M not _that_ drunk. Just… I just wanted to do something nice, okay?” 

“Okay,” Phil drew the word out, looking between her and Kate and America, and shit, now he was going to accuse Kate of debauching Skye as well as being party to a chicken defeathering incident. “Not that we’re complaining-- except for the near heart attack when we first heard you and the interruption of, ah, previously planned activities-- but was there a particular reason for this?” 

“Um,” Skye sighed, and gave them a calculating glance. 

Even in the dimness Kate could tell they were both failing to hide their worry. Given that the two of them were perfectly capable of hiding anything they damn well pleased, she decided that was either a deliberate sign of trust or an indication they were both kinda beside themselves. 

“Skye,” Phil said gently, and Skye slumped. 

“Please don’t hate me,” she said, and she wandered over to sink down onto one of the stairs herself. 

Phil cocked his head, and let his eyebrows ask for clarification. 

“When I tell you what I haven’t been telling you. Because I’m not sober right now,” Skye explained, “and I think I’d cry if you yelled at me and that would make it even worse ‘cause you don’t like it when I cry. You can hate me when I’ve got a hangover, ‘cause I’ll probably hate myself then anyway.” 

“I-- it’s--” Phil stuttered. “We don’t…we’re not going to yell at you and certainly not because you need to cry… if that happens.” He looked so uncomfortable that Kate wondered if he’d ever seen Skye cry apart from at his wedding. 

“And no one’s gonna hate you,” Clint added, tucking his parka around himself as he knelt down. “But we can’t exactly help if you don’t tell us what you haven’t been telling us. Which, by the way, Tony totally told us you had something to tell us but not to tell you he told us until you told us.” 

That stopped Skye for a long moment as she tried to untangle it. 

“Clint,” Phil huffed. “Not helping. Skye, Tony did tell us that you’d found something out that he wasn’t sure you wanted to share, and to let you come to us in your own time.” 

“Did he?” Skye sniffed. “Not sure if I wanna kiss him or punch him. I promise I didn’t plan to not ever tell you. I just didn’t know what you guys would say if I said I want to, I didn’t want you to feel….” She broke off again. 

“Threatened,” Kate supplied, when it was clear that neither Clint nor Phil knew what to do with that. “She didn’t want you to feel threatened.” 

Another glance between the two of them, and were they doing that more since they made it official, or had she just gotten un-used to it during her time away? 

“Threatened by what?” Phil asked, “or is that part of the thing you haven’t told us?” 

“Kinda yeah?” Skye winced. “But it’s not a shooty spy thing, just a me-thing-- or it wasn’t. Now it is. Oh, now you’re giving me the disappointed face. I know I should have told you before. Please don’t be mad at me.” 

“Yeah, mad’s not what I’m feeling right now,” Clint said slowly, and then he leaned forward to poke Phil on the arm. “Or disappointed either. How ‘bout you, babe?” 

Phil sighed, and then gathered Skye into his arms, clearly startling her, Clint, himself, and-- if the clucks from the run were any indication, the chickens. 

“I’m not sure what I’m supposed to be mad about, since you haven’t told me yet,” Phil said into her hair. “But I’m never going to be mad at you for needing time to get yourself together before you explain… and if Tony had thought it was something I’d disapprove of, I’m sure he’d have tried to let us know. You don’t have to apologize-- and while I appreciate the feeding chickens gesture, I’m not sure why you decided gingerbread cookies were the way to go about it.” 

He pointed into the dark of the run. Sure enough, Skye had managed to forget the plate of cookies she’d been going to leave in the cottage kitchen. Several hens had ventured out and began to pluck at frosting eyeballs and… other decorations. 

“Okay,” Skye said, “I can explain that too.” 

“All right,” Phil said, “but… maybe do the other bit first.” 

\---- 

“Oh my god, I can’t tell if that’s a hangover coming on or I’m just that tired,” Kate said a while later, stretching her limbs out and cracking her neck, breathing in the chilly air, “but it feels like tonight’s gone on forever.” 

““It should,” Clint said, behind her, “since it’s the longest night of the year.” 

She slumped further into the ancient anorak Clint had worn back when he’d first come to North Bar. He’d thrown it at her when it had become clear that Skye wasn’t going to move inside for her confession and they were all going to end up sitting on the porch for the duration. 

Kate was definitely trying not to think about that confession, about the mess that Skye’s search for her parents had turned up, and the way it was suddenly intersecting with the shit that had happened to Felix Blake after Director Fury had TAHITI’d him back to life. She’d thought they’d laid all that to bed when they’d sent him and his accomplices to the Fridge. In retrospect both Clint and Phil had seemed remarkably relaxed when she’d met them on North Bar, given that they’d apparently been dealing with Blake and his cracked mind again. Whether their relative lack of stress was the effect of island life or each other, she wasn’t sure. 

“Skye’s all right?” she asked him. 

“Yeah, Phil’s got her warming up inside. Here.” 

Kate blinked, looking back at what he was holding out. 

“New bow?” she asked, half breathless. It was a recurve, and she couldn’t tell much else in the pre-dawn light, so she took it in both hands and let herself get to know it by feel, tracing the generous curves and smooth risers. 

“Merry early Christmas,” Clint said, and she choked. 

Cut off from her dad and from her bank account, and having been off-world for so much of the last year, Kate hadn’t figured she’d be doing much gift-receiving in the next few days. 

“Clint--” she started. She couldn’t. She shouldn’t. She didn’t have anything to give him. 

“Shut up,” he told her. “Whatever you were gonna say, just don’t, and let’s go try out your new bow instead. Too late to sleep anyway.” 

Kate looked off over the gentle curve of North Bar, towards the center of the island, the mansion, and the archery butts that lay beyond. To her right, the sky was beginning to lighten. 

“Sure,” she said, “let’s.” 

\---- 

America stood between the stumps with her lantern held high, beaming its soft yellow glow on herself and the two targets. It puddled across the powdered snow and gleamed off Lucky lolling at her feet. He was watching them with every evidence of doggish contentment. Kate had nearly missed a couple times, too busy watching America, before she’d just given in and sighted off her. After that, all her arrows hit smack in the center of the target. 

“What d’you think Skye should do? About her dad?” she asked at last, and Clint shrugged. 

“Hell if I know. It’s up to her, not us. But I’ve never seen her fail at something she set her mind to, so whatever it is she’ll make it work out. Of course, I’ve never seen her wallow in something either, before."

"She's fond of you guys for some reason," Kate said, not looking at him, "and I don't think she's ever had a chance to figure out how to deal with that, you know?"

Not that Kate would know anything about that. (It was a good thing America couldn't hear what she was thinking, just at that moment-- Kate didn't need the grief.)

"Oh, trust me, I recognize the symptoms," Clint said, dry as a bone. "Just been a long time since I was quite that-- eh. I think we forget how young she is.” He frowned and loosed an arrow, not bothering to watch it hit before turning back to Kate. “But Phil’ll straighten it out, promise. Thank _you_ , Katie-Kate.” 

“What for? Getting her drunk off her ass and making sure she didn’t give Wanda J. inappropriately attired gingerbread cookies?” 

“If you want.” 

It was still too dim to see what was shifting on Clint’s face, but Kate knew something was. 

“First time I’ve gotten a pat on the head for illegal drinking,” Kate said, to try and drag the conversation back to something lighter. 

“Illegal--” Clint stopped still, then ducked his head in a helpless chuckle. “Man, Hawkeye, I forget how young _you_ are.” 

Kate felt her face flush, and was glad he couldn’t see it. (Probably. This was Clint; it never paid to be sure.) She opened her mouth to tell him that she’d forgotten, too-- and then shut it. 

How odd that she would forget. She was so used to the push-pull of being 19 (20 now), feeling ancient one minute while she watched Billy and Teddy joke around then feeling like a nervous six-year old while dealing with her dad. For the last year, she’d done little of either. She hadn’t had to talk to Dad at all, and except for the Chicken Incident, she hadn’t had to wrangle her friends. 

Kate looked back at America, watching her from a distance, and decided a lot of the credit belonged to her. Well-- to her and to traveling. And to the superhero next to her, who’d just casually called her by his own code name. 

“Hawkeye?” she asked him, not daring to look. “You’re still calling me that?” 

“Yeah well,” Clint said, focusing on his own target and sighting, “you earned it, remember? Even Iron Man admitted it.” 

“That was while you were dead. I mean… while we thought you were dead. You’re kinda not-dead now.” 

“Still earned it,” he countered, then released his arrow-- not bothering to even check the target where, sure enough, he’d managed to split one arrow with another again. “Room for more than one Hawkeye in this world. Speaking of, how long are you back in town for? And by ‘town’ I mean ‘this universe’?”

He said it so nonchalantly Kate nearly missed the way his toe shuffled in the snow. 

“Why? You miss me, Hawkeye?” she teased him.

Clint looked up, grinning sheepishly. 

“I never miss, Katie-Kate,” he said, bumping her shoulder. “Look, I look at you, and I think you’re a lot like me. And that means you’re gonna end up doing the same dumb shit I do and… I kinda want to watch you do it. It’s pretty cool.” 

He slung his bow over his shoulder and began walking towards the butts. Lucky perked up, watching Clint come, and lumbered to his feet to meet him halfway. 

“C’mon,” Clint called over his shoulder, “take your shot and let’s go, Girly-girl. Something I want to see.”

Kate looked from him to America and back, both of them together in the puddle of light now with a dog romping around their feet. She closed her eyes and took in a deep breath of morning, of snow and salt and pine-- and then she took her shot and started forward, not waiting to watch it hit.

 It took her a lot longer than expected to dig one arrow out of the other. Now she knew why Clint had a tendency to just leave ‘em after he did that trick; the splinters sucked.

 ----

 They met Phil and Skye down by the spit of land that faced east, where the scrub and the dune grass gave way to snow-covered sand and the regular crash and hiss of the waves. They were carrying thermoses of coffee and a couple blankets, and both of them seemed drained but content. The five of them, plus the dog, stood on the beach and watched the sun rise over the ocean, a strip of pinkish orange and clear gold against the silver of the sky and the surf and the snow.

 Kate closed her eyes briefly against the warmth in her chest, and sighed, content for once to have nowhere to go.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much to everyone who's read and loved Washed Ashore, who keep sending me chickens on tumblr, and who just generally have made me want to write this, to make sure you get to see our protagonists safely at home. (Mostly safely. Look... Skye'll be all right in the end. And Phil will eventually remember to call her Daisy. Tony will, well he'll try.)
> 
> Happy holidays to all of you, and you can always come visit me on [my tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/kat-har) to squee about chickens or ask questions, to say hello or just to lurk.


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